De-cluttering memories
While unpacking my baggage, one of the first big things I've come across is old wedding photos. What do people do with them? Keep them, store them, BURN THEM?!
I used to be a big scrapbooker. It was an important part of my life. I felt I was preserving and recording my memories and important life events. It was also fun and creative and I even have fond memories of making the pages. My mom and my sisters and I would gather once a year for a girls weekend of scrapbooking, watching chick flicks and eating all our favorite foods. It was so much fun to do but we stopped doing it several years ago.
My scrapbooking essentially stopped when I got divorced. I think it made me sad to scrapbook old memories of something that was being dissolved. But I didn't get rid of the albums I had already made. One of the first questions my sisters had when they found out I was getting a divorce was "what are you going to do with all your albums? Destroy them, rip him out of all your pages?" None of that made any sense to me. I had decided that my marriage, even though it was over, was a part of my life. And it was an important part of my kids lives. I can't just erase the memories and pretend they didn't happen. But I wasn't able to create more scrapbook pages or albums.
I think I had to go through a mourning period. And maybe I was afraid to make new memories and start preserving them for fear that it would all come to a bitter end as my marriage had. But I don't really think that is what happened to me. I did make new memories - some pretty awesome and wonderful ones! But maybe I just couldn't follow the same pattern of preserving and recording them. Maybe I had to find a new was to express my memories for a while at least.
This year, my mom and my sisters and I gathered once again for a scrapbook weekend for the first time in 4-5 years. It was fun but it wasn't the same. It made me think though about how things are changing. Scrapbooking with paper and print is old-fashioned I guess. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and even this blog is the more modern way to record our memories. But I do still love to look at my old albums. It's not as easy to just flip the pages of Facebook and find your trip to Europe or your high school Prom.
Anyway, here I am looking at pictures of me on my wedding day. I looked and felt beautiful. There was joy on my face. Laughter and tears on the faces of my friends and family as they shared in celebrating our future. It's bittersweet. So what will I do with them? They've been in a box and album all this time. Will my children ever want to see them? Will that bring them joy to know that once upon a time their parents loved each other and enjoyed each other. Or will it bring them sadness and pain? My son had a lot of difficulty letting go of the idea that we would someday get back together, even after his father remarried. So that makes me apprehensive about sharing them.
I would think that in order to have a healthy outlook on relationships and maintain a healthy self image, children need to believe that they came from loving, healthy parents. Yet in a divorce, they also need to be able to accept that sometimes relationships still don't work out and they can still love and be loved by both parents. I would have to admit that neither of us has always shown them that healthy side of us during the divorce. And if I'm telling the truth I don't feel very loving toward their father anymore and never felt like he was very loving toward me, even during our marriage. But honestly, I believe that memories can be a fluid thing and we can rewrite them if we want to. Maybe that can even be the healthiest thing we can do with them. I want to be able to leave them with the healthy parts and remove the poisonous parts if I can. Maybe I need to work on rewriting my own memories so that I can leave them will happier ones too.
Moving forward, I think that I will keep some of the photos. The ones that show me as a beautiful and joyous person and loved by many friends and family. And I think I will keep a few of the ones of my ex husband and I together and happy on our wedding day. I will probably keep those tucked away to give to my children when they are older. When they are better able to understand the complexities of relationships. But until then I will take with me the lessons I've learned and try to live as the beautiful and joyous woman those photos convey. And to let go of any anger and sadness I may still have from the loss so that I don't pass on any bitter memories to my children.
I used to be a big scrapbooker. It was an important part of my life. I felt I was preserving and recording my memories and important life events. It was also fun and creative and I even have fond memories of making the pages. My mom and my sisters and I would gather once a year for a girls weekend of scrapbooking, watching chick flicks and eating all our favorite foods. It was so much fun to do but we stopped doing it several years ago.
My scrapbooking essentially stopped when I got divorced. I think it made me sad to scrapbook old memories of something that was being dissolved. But I didn't get rid of the albums I had already made. One of the first questions my sisters had when they found out I was getting a divorce was "what are you going to do with all your albums? Destroy them, rip him out of all your pages?" None of that made any sense to me. I had decided that my marriage, even though it was over, was a part of my life. And it was an important part of my kids lives. I can't just erase the memories and pretend they didn't happen. But I wasn't able to create more scrapbook pages or albums.
I think I had to go through a mourning period. And maybe I was afraid to make new memories and start preserving them for fear that it would all come to a bitter end as my marriage had. But I don't really think that is what happened to me. I did make new memories - some pretty awesome and wonderful ones! But maybe I just couldn't follow the same pattern of preserving and recording them. Maybe I had to find a new was to express my memories for a while at least.
This year, my mom and my sisters and I gathered once again for a scrapbook weekend for the first time in 4-5 years. It was fun but it wasn't the same. It made me think though about how things are changing. Scrapbooking with paper and print is old-fashioned I guess. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and even this blog is the more modern way to record our memories. But I do still love to look at my old albums. It's not as easy to just flip the pages of Facebook and find your trip to Europe or your high school Prom.
Anyway, here I am looking at pictures of me on my wedding day. I looked and felt beautiful. There was joy on my face. Laughter and tears on the faces of my friends and family as they shared in celebrating our future. It's bittersweet. So what will I do with them? They've been in a box and album all this time. Will my children ever want to see them? Will that bring them joy to know that once upon a time their parents loved each other and enjoyed each other. Or will it bring them sadness and pain? My son had a lot of difficulty letting go of the idea that we would someday get back together, even after his father remarried. So that makes me apprehensive about sharing them.
I would think that in order to have a healthy outlook on relationships and maintain a healthy self image, children need to believe that they came from loving, healthy parents. Yet in a divorce, they also need to be able to accept that sometimes relationships still don't work out and they can still love and be loved by both parents. I would have to admit that neither of us has always shown them that healthy side of us during the divorce. And if I'm telling the truth I don't feel very loving toward their father anymore and never felt like he was very loving toward me, even during our marriage. But honestly, I believe that memories can be a fluid thing and we can rewrite them if we want to. Maybe that can even be the healthiest thing we can do with them. I want to be able to leave them with the healthy parts and remove the poisonous parts if I can. Maybe I need to work on rewriting my own memories so that I can leave them will happier ones too.
Moving forward, I think that I will keep some of the photos. The ones that show me as a beautiful and joyous person and loved by many friends and family. And I think I will keep a few of the ones of my ex husband and I together and happy on our wedding day. I will probably keep those tucked away to give to my children when they are older. When they are better able to understand the complexities of relationships. But until then I will take with me the lessons I've learned and try to live as the beautiful and joyous woman those photos convey. And to let go of any anger and sadness I may still have from the loss so that I don't pass on any bitter memories to my children.
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